2 Middletown schools fail to make adequate yearly progress

CLAIRE MICHALEWICZ

Published 12:00 am, Tuesday, August 30, 2011

MIDDLETOWN - Two of the city's schools have failed to make "Adequate Yearly Progress" on the Connecticut Mastery Test, leaving school administrators scrambling to offer parents the option of placing their children in other Middletown elementary schools.

An email obtained by the Press, sent from Associate Superintendent Barbara Senges to the Board of Education, several school administrators and some Middletown residents, explains that Farm Hill and Bielefield had been designated as "In Need of Improvement" under the No Child Left Behind Act. According to the act, Senges wrote, the district is required to offer parents the option of putting their children in a school that had made adequate yearly progress and had space.

The choice was offered to students at Bielefield and Farm Hill who are designated as Title 1 under federal law - those who receive a free or reduced lunch - and who achieved under grade level.

"Students at Bielefield and Farm Hill in grades 3 and 4 who fit this profile were called and offered a few available seats," Senges wrote.

The official Adequate Yearly Progress results are cannot be released until Thursday, school administrators said. Senges could not be reached for comment, as school offices were closed Monday and Tuesday, and Superintendent of Schools Michael Frechette said he was unable to talk about the test results.

Senges' email explained that the district also did some reshuffling of kindergarten classes. She said the district had originally expected that Bielefield, Farm Hill and Macdonough would need three kindergartends each, but the Farm Hill ended up needing four. The solution, Senges said, was to create a class at Wesley, using students from Bielefield and Farm Hill, and transferring a student from Bielefield to Wesley.

Switching schools was voluntary, Senges said, and was offered to parents as an additional choice.

Senges said that under state guidelines, the schools had to address the enrollment within 14 days. Senges' email was sent on Friday, and she said she received the data from the state "a little over a week ago."

Board of Education members said the embargo on the data applied to them, too, and they hadn't seen the district's figures yet.

"I'd prefer to be notified ahead of time," said board member Sheila Daniels, who said she'd like to have information to offer to parents who had been calling her. Daniels said she didn't feel comfortable talking about the school's test results until she saw the numbers.

Board Chairman Ted Raczka said he was uncomfortable with moving the students around now, before getting an idea of enrollment throughout the first marking period. Raczka said about 50 students enter and leave the school district each month, which makes it difficult to calculate enrollment.

He said the board planned on following up on redistricting within the city's schools at its Sept. 26 meeting. Raczka said he was concerned that the shuffling of students might have happened too early. Ideally, he said, the district would be able to wait until the first semester was complete.

"The worst thing you could do is move students around three or four times," he said. Still, he said, "It's certainly an issue, and it needs to be addressed."

Board member Bill Grady said the standards for No Child Left Behind are high, and the board hadn't expected that each school would be able to meet the standards. That, however, wasn't a reflection on the quality of the teaching.

"I think it's unfair for the public or anybody to come away thinking that the school failed," Grady said. Grady said he wanted to be able to review the numbers before he commented any further.

Claire Michalewicz can be reached by email at cmichalewicz@middletownpress.com. Text MIDNEWS to 22700 to get news alerts directly to your cell phone. Standard messaging and data rates apply.